Volume 13 has both pinyin and stroke count indexes, plus appendices. A separate index volume (1997) lists 728,000 entries for characters by their position within words and phrases, something like a reverse dictionary. For instance, the Hanyu da cidian enters Daode jing (道德經) under the head character dao; this reverse-index lists it under both de and jing. "Despite the fact that it weighs over 20 kilos and contains a total of 50 million characters spread over 20,000 large double-column pages," says Wilkinson (2000:71), "the Hanyu da cidian is an easy dictionary to use to the full because it is unusually well indexed." It became even easier to use when Victor H. Mair edited a single-sort alphabetically arranged pinyin index (2003).

The abridged CD-ROM version (2.0) contains 18,013 head characters, 336,385 words and phrases (without pinyin), and 861,956 citations. It includes male and female sound files for single-syllable pronunciation, and enables more than 20 search methods. It requires Microsoft Windows, with a Chinese locale setting due to its use of GB 18030.

The 3.0 CD-ROM version was released in 2007. This version includes SecuROM DRM copy protection software in its installation, possibly in response to the earlier version's ISO image being illegally distributed on VeryCD. Due to design errors, the 2007 version of 3.0 is incompatible with Windows 7 OS; rather than release a free software patch to fix the problem, the publisher began selling an otherwise unchanged, full-price Windows 7-compatible version of 3.0 in 2010.